Bad Taste

You often hear it said that taste is all in the eye of the beholder - and that there is no such thing as 'bad taste'. We think there is - and that bad taste is often down to excess; caused by trauma.

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[brii]

This feels as if you are constantly looking down on someone else.

[Nosteponsneksss]

Normal response: "This isn't my personal preference."

School of life: *"Obviously this was made by someone broken and traumatized."*

[thetobe]

Who even came up with this? Are there any sources?
Seems like one groundless assertion after another.
And accusing someone to have had a trauma just because they are eccentric is quite ignorant.

[deadtech]

This video is the definition of "pseudophilosophy". No sources, no background information, and wildly overgeneralized speculation.

[mc_dibia]

why do you call your taste good and others bad? how is that scientific or factual? what exactly makes yours good and theirs bad?

[lizabryan]

I loved the subtle implication that everything in London is in good taste, lol.

[TheEconomicElder]

Its a bit shallow to say bad taste is just composition. I think bad taste comes from familiarity with a design, either from child hood experiences or trying to emulate your peers. Or even from rationalizing a purchase.
.

[kylem]

Hmm, I find this interpretation of 'taste' far too simplistic. You've boiled 'taste' down to merely reflecting individual hangups or one's attempt to compensate, thus, inferring a lack of agency or multiple narratives that may be behind said taste. In other words, X has kitchy taste because X is poor, ignores any layers of meaning or messages intending to target others or enter into a larger discourse. While superficially it may be easy to boil down taste to some Freudian interpretation of the ego, this sort of analysis lacks the conscious ways in which the individual may use art through their taste as a means of either resisting or conforming to social and cultural norms, and or opposing narratives which take shape through taste and design.

[PizzaPlatypus]

"bad taste is a massive over-compensation" what about Baroque architecture, and all other complex things, which are often considered good taste. I think the concept that taste is entirely derived from interior feelings and the like just doesn't seem to really work. I for example am fairly chaotic in my mind but love the design of films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and a lot of Fellini's more bizarre films. Also you seem to have made little or no argument for the taste in more free countries being in some way objectively good, you simply assert that it is and that the excess of other places are bad taste, I don't see why this is inherently so. Essentially the argument seems to be taken from a viewpoint that there is a defined good and bad taste, despite the fact that, as you say at the beginning of the video, this isn't so.

[MrYang]

Meh, to me it's all a matter of opinion. People just treat their opinions as if they were facts so they can feel superior to others. This effect gets amplified if other people share the same opinion. You can call a certain style "bad" all you want, it doesn't make it objectively true.

[mariamalkadri]

Well, an interesting decision to illustrate 'bad taste' as a Saudi Arabian with a fancy car, v.s. London, the experts in design and good taste, and then assuming the psychoanalytical approach of: maybe there was a trauma, while it actually seems like 'Othering' and mystifying the East. Didn't Said already warn you about Orientalism?

[dewe]

why this video use the adjective " bad " to describe some style which they just have the different tastes....

[ryankelley]

I love TSOL, but this wreaks of ethnocentrism.

[starlightbright]

Ehhh, I find this to be too generalizing and a little problematic, though I can't articulate why. I think School of Life videos often make the mistake of getting stuck on a single interpretation of a concept (ie bad taste = compensation, philanthropy = donation of art) and can't move on from that.

[Mightfox]

This video really feels like unsubstantiated pseudoscience. Just pointing to a minor number of seemingly-right examples and then presenting some doesnt make something true.

[violentswami]

Surely taste is a matter of preference and influence

[zakourille]

"people having subjective tastes seems just TOO easy! is your life a mess??? thats why you like minimalism" what the hell

[TheDevNell]

"What's bad in bad taste isn't the person, but the prior trauma which they're seeking to compensate for through their decor"

I have no idea if there's truth to this but died laughing...

[alterglobo]

LOL, so: "WE BRITS IMPERSONATE GOOD TASTE". Everything else is rubbish.

Even your fragmentary explanation is badly applied because yes, Britons might have enjoyed centuries of disproportionate wealth (which was acquired through slavery and exploitation of colonies, then inherited to this day), but that wealth (which to a large extent is based in superficial material consumerism) often is the back side of a society wanting for healthy human passions, emotions, discussions.

There is a reason why Britain is good in iconoclastic art (alternative rock and pop music) and so bad in classic arts (classical music) and contemporary literature, painting, sculpture, architecture.

So, chill out a bit...

[joecarmo]

Prior trauma is their excuse for everything!